Today, Christians from all over the world commemorate Jesus’ death on the cross. But why? For the bystander, it just looked like another criminal’s death. They had seen this act hundreds of times before. No need to celebrate. Be repulsed? Yes. Celebrate? No. Yet Christians continue to celebrate the cross of Christ.

You see, it was on the cross where Jesus payed the just penalty for our sins. Without the cross, there would be no forgiveness. It was a monumental event, which is why we’ve historically dubbed it “Good Friday.”

Yet this title couldn’t be more ironic. After all, it was anything but a Good Friday for Jesus. It was the darkest day of his life, and sadly we’ve sanitized it. We’ve either forgotten or never considered the gut-wrenching torture Jesus faced.

THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE

Immediately after the Last Supper, Jesus went with his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. As he prayed, and as he anticipated the events of the next day, we read that Jesus experienced enormous amounts of psychological distress.

Not only did Jesus pray repeatedly for his Father to remove the cup of suffering from him, we read in Luke 22 that Jesus’ mental anguish caused him to sweat blood — an effect that seems almost unbelievable. Yet, it’s not as unbelievable as it might seem.

According to Alexander Metherell, MD, sweating blood is a known medical condition called hematidrosis. While not very common, it’s associated with intense mental stress. He states, “severe anxiety causes the release of chemicals that break down the capillaries in the sweat glands. As a result, there’s a small amount of bleeding into these glands, and the sweat comes out tinged with blood.”¹

One Journal of Medicine article reports seventy-six cases of hematidrosis and concludes that the most common causes were acute fear and intense mental contemplation.²

This raises an obvious question though: Why was Jesus so scared? We know from church history that lots of Christians joyfully died for their faith. Stories abound about Christians singing songs and rejoicing as they’re facing the lions or the stake. Why didn’t Jesus act this way? Was he not as bold as the rest?

The truth is, Jesus’ mental anguish was about much more than his upcoming crucifixion. Jesus knew that, in the sight of his Father, he was about to become the most vile, despicable human in history. Jesus, who knew no sin, was about to become sin for us. He was about to take upon his shoulders the sin of the world — all the rape, all the murder, all the child abuse, all the injustice that has ever occurred — and experience his Father’s judgment as if he had done it all.

Someone who was so pure was about to have our sin imputed to him. And the Father was going to direct his righteous anger toward the Son as if he was truly rebellious. No wonder Jesus sweat blood. The mental anguish was simply too much to bear.

THE FLOGGING

After his arrest and trial Thursday night, Pilate ordered Jesus’ flogging and crucifixion.

While Christians focus more on the crucifixion, and rightly so, we must not forget the torture that led up to it. After all, flogging was so severe that it often times killed the subject before they got to the cross. If you’re unfamiliar with a Roman flogging, read this description carefully:

The usual instrument was a short whip… with several single or braided leather thongs of variable lengths, in which small iron balls or sharp pieces of sheep bones were tied at intervals … the man was stripped of his clothing, and his hands were tied to an upright post … The back, the buttocks, and legs were flogged … The scourging was intended to weaken the victim to a state just short of collapse or death … As the Roman soldiers repeatedly struck the victim’s back with full force, the iron balls would cause deep contusions, and the leather thongs and sheep bones would cut into the skin and subcutaneous tissues. Then, as the flogging continued, the lacerations would tear into the underlying skeletal muscles.³

Roman floggings were brutal. In the end, the flogging would have torn into Jesus’ underlying skeletal muscles leaving only ribbons of flesh from his shoulders to the back of his legs. Fourth-century historian Eusebius stated, “the sufferer’s veins were laid bare, and the very muscles, sinews, and bowels of the victim were open to exposure.”

The flogging would have put Jesus into hypovolemic shock — a condition due to loss of blood. Medically, Jesus’ heart would have raced to try and pump blood that wasn’t there any longer. His blood pressure would have dropped and he would have become faint. Additionally, his kidneys would have all but shut down.⁴

All things considered, it’s no wonder Jesus collapsed as he attempted to carry the cross beam to the place of his execution.

THE CRUCIFIXION

As Jesus approached his crucifixion site, the soldiers would have laid him on the ground and stretched out his arms across the horizontal beam which they had yet to attach to the vertical beam.

They would have then driven seven inch spikes through Jesus’ wrists attaching them to this beam. This act would have crushed the largest nerve going out of his hands which would have felt similar to someone taking a pair of pliers and crushing your funny bone.

At this point, the Roman soldiers would have hoisted Jesus up along with the horizontal beam and attached it to the vertical beam already staked in the ground. They would have then driven a spike through both of Jesus’ feet. Again, the spike would have crushed the major nerves coming out of Jesus’ feet.

With Jesus’ arms outstretched, his shoulders would have come out of socket. Additionally, his resting “down” position would have left his chest and diaphragm in a perpetual inhale position. So, in order for Jesus to exhale, he would have had to push up on his nail-pierced feet, scraping his already exposed back on the wooden beam. Then he could let go and “relax” in the down position for a brief moment before he had to push up again to get another breath.

And Jesus would have to repeat this motion over and over and over. Hour after hour after hour, until complete exhaustion set in and he couldn’t push up any more. Then he would suffocate to death.

To speed up the process, sometimes the soldiers would break the legs of the criminal so they couldn’t push up to exhale any longer. Jesus died before they had to do this.

Throughout the crucifixion, Jesus would have experienced massive heart failure, resulting in a collection of fluid around his heart and lungs — a condition known as pericardial effusion. This fluid buildup explains why when the soldier pierced Jesus’ side, both blood and “water” came out.

GOOD FRIDAY?

It’s hard to imagine a worse way to die. It was so bad, that they had to invent a new word to describe the agony — excruciating (meaning out of the cross). Furthermore, Roman elites refused to even use the word because of its vile nature. And yet Christians call this good.

Why? Why was Jesus’ death good? Because he did it for us. He experienced God’s judgment and died as our substitute. It was the greatest act of love and sacrifice in history. And for this reason, we call it Good Friday.

1. Alexander Metherell, “The Medical Evidence” The Case for Christ, 211.
2. J.E. Holoubek and A. Holoubek, “Blood, Sweat and Fear: A Classification of Hematidrosis,” in Journal of Medicine 1996, 27 (3-4): 115-133.
3. William D. Edwards, Wesley J. Gabel, and Floyd Hosmer, “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 255.11, (21 March 1986): 1457.
4. Alexander Metherell, “The Medical Evidence” The Case for Christ, 212.